State Agriculture Minister Badal on Tuesday said that the Government is working towards strengthening farmers financially. The Government has started the process of making lists of farmers who had taken loans from banks and were unable to repay the amount. The government is working on a process on loan waivers of such farmers.
The Agriculture Minister revealed this at a meeting of the State-level committee on the farmers’ loan scheme with several departmental officials including the Development Commissioner at Nepal House.
The agriculture minister instructed officials to meet bank officials to ascertain how much and how the banks can help in loan waiver of farmers. Badal said, “The scheme of one time settlement should be worked by going through the farmers’ loan accounts which have become NPAs, so that the farmers can get immediate relief. Several important issues for farm loan waiver were discussed in the meeting, including the formation of a State-level committee, to ensure the role of SLBC.” It may be noted that the government has provided Rs 2000 crore in the budget under the loan waiver scheme.
“Funds to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore have been approved for the first phase. Between 2014 and 2019, about 8 lakh farmers have taken loans to the tune of around Rs 7,000 crore. Of this total liability, we will waive Rs 2,000 crore in the first phase this fiscal,” Badal said.
About the quantum of waiver per farmer, he said the high-powered committee would finalise it and make an announcement soon. Departmental sources, however, claimed that the waiver could be in the range of Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 for small and medium farmers.
There will be a meeting of office-bearers on the next October 20, on the debt waiver scheme under the chairmanship of the Agriculture minister, after which a final decision will be taken with meeting high officials of all banks.
Its implementation will be through coordination of various departments of the government and certain agencies. It will include the Agriculture, IT Department, and State Level Bankers Committee. The main task of implementation will be with the Directorate of Agriculture. The nodal agency of the bankers will be SLBC.
Officials who were present at today’s meeting include Development Commissioner KK Khandelwal, Secretary Land Reform and Revenue Department KK Soan, Agriculture Secretary Abu Baqr Siddiqui among others.